Crap Translations: Episode 1

A few days ago I was thinking about a piece I sang with the SIUE concert choir called ‘The Enemy’. Â It was part of a suite of songs based on the text of Charles Baudelaire’sÂ Flowers of Evil. Â It’s pretty obscure, so I was having a hard time finding a the original French text. Â After a bit, I tracked it down, only to discover that the English translations I’d found online were mostly garbage. Â They mistook the meaning of words, left things out or added non-existent phrases and ideas to the original. Â This is not acceptable.

In that spirit, I present the first attempt to correct a litany of terrible translations with one that is faithful to the spirit and letter of the original text. Â Here’s the original text: